"Can't a-bear verbosity."
"I can tell you why," he proceeded, with unwonted perturbation. "Because little motes and particles of dust, thrown into agitation by the convective currents of the air, are made visible by the strong beam of light thrown into the room through the crevice of the shutter. That's just the way with us, dear Toby; a is the hatred of Government by the Opposition, the strong desire to take our places; b is the convective currents of air which agitate the political atmosphere; c is the Compensation Bill, the strong beam of light which, thrown into House through crevice opened by Jokim, makes the whole thing clear. Don't know whether I am; but if you reflect on the situation, you'll find there is much in what I say. We were going along moderately well. Irish Land Bill, of course, a rock ahead; everyone takes that into account. Suddenly Jokim, spoiling for a fight, goes and invents this Compensation Bill, quietly hands it over to Ritchie to work through, and all the greasy compound is in the devouring element. Seems a pity we could not leave the tolerably satisfactory undisturbed. Now we're in for it. Meetings out-of-doors; opposition in-doors; prospect of getting on with ordinary work of Session receding into distance."
Good deal of truth in what Old Morality says. House crowded to-night; full of seething excitement. Ritchie moved Second Reading of Compensation Bill; Caine moved Amendment, eliminating principle of compensation. Capital speech; would have been better if it had been half an hour shorter. Between them, Ritchie and Caine occupied nearly three hours of sitting, leaving five hours for the remaining 668 Members.
"This is not debate," protested Shaw-Lefevre, sternly! "it is preaching; why cannot a man be concise? Concision, if I may coin a word, is the soul of argument. My old friend Dizzy used to say to me, 'Shaw, what I admire about Lefevre is his terseness. If you want a man to say in twenty minutes everything that, from his point of view, is to be spoken on a given subject, Shaw-Lefevre is the man.' That was, perhaps, a too flattering view to take; but there's something in it, and it makes me, perhaps naturally, impatient of a man who wanders round his subject for an hour and a half."
Business done.—Debate on Compensation opened.
Tuesday.—"Heard something about good man struggling with adversity," said Member for Sark, looking at Rathbone. "Nothing to goody goody man struggling with manuscript of his speech."
Rathbone certainly a melancholy spectacle. Evidently had spent his nights and days in preparation of speech on Compensation Bill; brought it down in large quarto notes. Old Morality glanced across House with sudden access of interest; thought it was a copy-book; Speech evidently highly prized at rehearsals in family circle.
"I think," said Rathbone, complacently, "before I sit down I shall show you that the view I take is correct."
This remark interjected early in speech; proved rather a favourite. Whenever Rathbone got more than usually muddled, looked round nervously at empty Benches, nodded confidentially to Mace, and remarked, "Before I sit down I think I shall show you——" What it was he meant to show, no one quite certain. Elliot Lees, who followed, assumed with reckless light-heartedness of youth, that he meant to show before he sat down, that the more public-houses licensed, the less drunkenness.
"That," said Rathbone, with unaccustomed flash of intelligent speech, "was exactly the reverse of what I undertook to show the House."
Would have gone on pretty well only for (1) the Accountant, and (2) Sinclair. Whatever it was Rathbone was going to show before he sat down, he had fortified himself in his position by opinion of a sworn Accountant. Conversations with this Accountant set forth at length. Rathbone appears to have been kept by the Accountant in state of constant surprise. "Let's take two places in the country," he said, in one of the more lucid passages. "Well, there are only 360 public-houses in Leeds. Sheffield has 400 public-houses in proportion to population, whereas Bradford hasn't 160. Well, I was so much struck with this, that I wanted to know whether there were any reasons for it. So I applied to the Accountant—without telling him my object—which really was," he added, nodding quite briskly at the Mace, "to know whether there was more drunkenness in Leeds or Sheffield. He said at once, that Leeds was the most. Then I said to the Accountant 'I don't care about your individual cases, let's take the average. Let's take Birmingham.'"
